GOP leaders sound the alarm on illegal immigration

March 24, 2021 Amber28 US 0

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents take into custody people near the U.S.-Mexico border, Saturday, March 20, 2021, in Hidalgo, Texas. A surge of migrants on the Southwest border has the Biden administration on the defensive. The head of Homeland Security acknowledged the severity of the problem Tuesday but insisted it's under control and said he won't revive a Trump-era practice of immediately expelling teens and children. An official says U.S. authorities encountered nearly double the number children traveling alone across the Mexican border in one day this week than on an average day last month. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents take into custody people near the U.S.-Mexico border, Saturday, March 20, 2021, in Hidalgo, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 7:25 AM PT – Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Republican senators are blaming Democrat leadership for the influx of illegal aliens overwhelming the U.S.-Mexico border. Some have even referred to the the border crisis as the “Biden effect.”

While speaking on the Senate floor Tuesday, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wy.) and Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) pointed out how the Biden administration’s policies are squarely to blame for the crisis at the southern border.

The GOP lawmakers began with data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which shows more than 100,000 illegal immigrants crossed the border in the month of February. Sen. Scott stressed that’s more than double the number from that time last year. The Florida lawmaker made the following remarks on the matter:

“You’ve heard the numbers, 100,000 people were detained last month. Almost 10,000 children. Fifteen-thousand children now in custody. This is all Joe Biden’s doing. He needs to go to the border, needs to see the crisis he’s created. He said he’s going to do it now, but we don’t know when he’s going to do it. He created this crisis. He needs to go deal with it.”

In response, the Biden administration recently awarded Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) an $86.9 million contract to secure hotel rooms near the border to provide temporary shelter for families who illegally crossed.

Under the contract, each family receives a comprehensive health assessment, including COVID-19 testing. However, it’s been reported that more than 100 illegal immigrants who tested positive have been released into Texas.

Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., speaks during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the nomination of Samantha Power to be the next Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Tuesday, March 23, 2021 on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Greg Nash/Pool via AP)

Sen. Barrasso said Republicans have solutions, but Democrats don’t want to hear them.

“This is Joe Biden’s crisis, he created it by his policies,” asserted the Wyoming lawmaker. “Republicans have common sense solutions that would actually reverse this immediately and it involves securing the border, enforcing the laws and restoring the ‘Remain in Mexico’ orders.”

Sen. Barrasso said otherwise, security and safety of the U.S. will continue to suffer. He went on to preview the trip he plans to make to the border in Texas later this week to inspect the situation firsthand since the White House is “still in denial.”